Alex Ovechkin's latest comments involving the Penguins points to a much bigger plan

He answered with a Pittsburgh Penguin, and the choice says more than it looks.

Speaking with Nikita Filatov and Andrey Arshavin on a FONBET program, the Washington Capitals captain named Mario Lemieux.

He passed over the Russian greats and Owen Nolan, the San Jose Sharks winger he cheered for as a kid.

Ovechkin and Lemieux shared the ice exactly once, on November 22, 2005 in Pittsburgh, a 5-4 Penguins win that also marked the first Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby meeting. Lemieux retired two months later and sent him a game-used stick from that night.

Lemieux finished with 690 goals and 1,723 points in 915 games, but his rarest achievement came later. He converted deferred salary into equity, bought the Penguins out of bankruptcy in 1999, and became the first player in North American sports to own the team he played for.

That template is live again. The Hoffmann Family of Companies was approved as Pittsburgh's controlling owner in June, and Geoff Hoffmann has said he wants Lemieux, still a minority owner, more involved.

Ovechkin already holds an advisory role with Dynamo Moscow, the club that raised him.

On the same FONBET platform in July, he said his final hockey game will be played for Dynamo.

He is entering his 22nd NHL season on a one-year deal carrying a $4.25 million cap hit, and he is openly planning the back half of his life in hockey. Naming Lemieux is not nostalgia for a scorer he barely faced.

It is a 40-year-old picking the one legend who turned a jersey into a boardroom seat.

Ovechkin has never hidden that he wants Dynamo in his future, and he just named the blueprint.

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